Haris Silajdzic, the Co-Prime Minister of the Government of Bosnia-Herzegovina, is known today as a statesman who alerted the world to the aggression and violation of human rights that devastated his country. His career began, however, as an academic in the fields of Arabic-Islamic studies and the history of diplomacy.

Scholarly pursuits led him to become a professor of philosophy in Sarajevo. In that role, he expanded upon his Muslim background and became knowledgeable about a wide range of diverse views. He has taught and lectured on Middle Eastern and Islamic topics at universities in his country and the U.S., including Harvard and the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton. In his fields of study, he has also published two books and numerous articles.

After becoming actively engaged in politics in 1990 and following the first free elections in Bosnia, Haris Silajdzic became the Prime Minister of the Republic of Bosnia in 1993. It was a time of mounting turmoil, when long-festering ethnic and religious divisions among Serbs, Croatians, and Bosnians came to a brutally violent head. Through talks with governments worldwide, and working with humanitarian organizations, he helped nearly two million Bosnian refugees escape death and terror. Silajdzic emerged as a strong voice telling the world of the plight of innocent civilians whose most basic human rights were being violated.

Ardent and vocal in his support of peaceful solutions, Hafts Silajdzic headed his government's delegation in negotiating the Dayton Accord. He played a key role in
the creation of Bosnia-Herzegovina and ending the fighting between Croat and Bosnian forces.

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